Jeremy Spoke
by toledo girl
Summary: After filling in for one of his friends, Bob realizes just how much a person can repress.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Sitting In

All he had to do was stay there and help them along as they talked. That was what Bob kept telling himself as he walked down the perfectly white hall of the sanitarium.

Smith's Grove. That was the place where one of his former college friends now worked as a psychiatrist to the clinically insane. Today though, he had to help his sister move into a new place and he wanted Bob to just simply sit in and babysit a group that was scheduled to have a session. He wasn't even supposed to actually interfere with their conversation, just sit back and monitor them to make sure that they didn't do anything to either themselves or each other.

Bob himself, had never wanted to work with these type of people. He enjoyed helping those who were still able to function out in the world. These people though, were completely unstable and unfit to even step out into the real world and be able to take care of themselves. These were the people that depressed him, and even the people that scared him at times.

He stopped at the door that was marked Conference Rm. 2210. Looking at the door, he sighed. Those few seconds before he opened the door and walked in were all he had to prepare himself for what he was about to hear about here. It wasn't so much that he wouldn't be able to listen to these people, but more of the helplessness that came with it, the fact that all he was allowed to do was just sit there and listen.

"Hey look! It's the babysitter that Doctor Cromley promised!" a man announced as Bob stepped in and closed the door behind him.

"Yes, I'm uh," he stopped and scanned the room a brief moment. "I'm Doctor Hartley."

There just wasn't much here. A group of chairs placed in a circle containing six people. The floor was tile, the white walls containing windows with light blue curtains. It wasn't as bad as one would expect to see, but it still bothered him.

A woman, she looked about Emily's age, sat directly before the chair set aside for Bob. Her eyes followed him with intense interest, a smirk forming on her lips. Her hand nervously twitched as she reached up and brushed her fine, light brown hair back behind her ear. "Is this all really necessary? I already know why I'm here, and I know better than to mutilate anyone or anything," she curtly explained.

Bob sat down and looked to her, wishing that he could know what was going on in her mind right now. "Well, uh, well why don't you go ahead and tell us all why?" he requested, hoping that this wasn't how the rest of the hour was going to continue.

"Erin! You're making him nervous," stated a young girl who sat next to her. She looked like she could only be about twenty years old. A face that always looked like she was on the verge of tears.

"It's okay," he quickly assured her, wanting to keep everyone calm.

Erin rolled her eyes and then focused her attention on Bob. "This kid, Jeremy. Never spoke. All he did was watch us and then a few times invited us up to his shed. There, we got to watch him do creepy and messed up things," she bluntly stated.

"Just because he didn't use to talk doesn't mean that he was bad. I used to never speak," a young man informed her. He looked as if he hadn't slept in a few days.

Erin looked to him, offended. "He would hurt us," she flatly responded. "He hurts me overtime I see him in my dreams, and every fucking time that I think of him. That's every fucking day Tyler!" she cried out, starting to get hysterical. Her chair fell back as she stood up, towering over Tyler.

"Miss!" Bob called to her. "Please, please just sty calm," he politely requested. The last thing he wanted to do was to have to go get a nurse to take care of her.

Erin stopped and looked to him. "What? No shot?" she asked, calming herself.

Bob shook his head. "No, I don't, I don't like to use sedatives and all of that," he answered.

Erin took a moment and sighed as she picked her chair back up and sat back down on it.

"A regular Doctor Zeller," Tyler remarked, crossing his arms and looking in the opposite direction from Bob.

Bob slightly smiled and looked over to the man. "Who?" he questioned. He had briefly studied a Doctor by the name of George Zeller, but figured that anyone who didn't have to know who was, wouldn't bother researching him.

Tyler turned and looked to him, studying him as if he were trying to figure out whether or not he could trust him. "He was the first doctor to actually talk to his patients and not restrain and abuse them. One of his successful patients include Rhoda Derry. A girl who before seeing him, had gauged her own eyes out because of the hallucinations she was experiencing," he quietly stated.

"That's impressive," Bob replied.

"I did a paper on him when I was in pre-med to become a psychiatrist," Tyler informed him and then turned his head back to the wall.

For some reason, the fact that this man was going to become a psychiatrist before ending up here, struck something in Bob. It made him uneasy feeling, making him wonder what it was that pushed him over the edge.

Erin looked down and shoved her hand into her pocket. "Doctor Hartley? I know we're not really supposed to be talking to you right now, but I have something that I need you to take. I need you to take it far away from me and never let me see it again. Ever," she told him.

"What is it?" he implored, knowing that he was most likely, about to regret it.

Erin pulled a picture out and handed it to him. It was a class picture from when she was a little girl. "He's in that picture."

Bob accepted the photo and nodded. He didn't pay attention as he folded it up and slid it into his pocket. The names were written on the back of it. The bottom line read J. Cotton, R. Reynolds, G. Perry, J. Peters, E. Collins, and E. Harrison.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Familiar

Emily sat on the couch next to Howard as he held his arm out for her while she mended a small hole that he ripped on his uniform.

"I would have done this myself but I only have about thirty minutes to get to the airport," Howard explained.

"Don't worry about it Howard," Emily responded as she finished off the area. "There you go," she announced, cutting the excess thread and then standing up to go put the needle away in her kit.

"Thanks Emily," he replied, smiling up to her.

"Your welcome."

Howard stood up and started for the door. "Well, I guess I should get going now, I have to head down to Denver in a few minutes," he informed her.

"Have a good trip," she responded.

As Howard went for the doorknob, the door opened and Bob entered the room. He looked worn out and somewhat edgy. "Hi Emily, hey Howard," he greeted as he set his suitcase down at the door and then headed over to the couch and took a seat.

"I would live to stay and chat Bob, but I gotta go to Denver tonight," Howard mentioned. "So I guess I'll just talk to you later instead." With that, he headed out and closed the door behind him. Right now, he was kind of glad to be able to leave right now. With the way that Bob looked, he knew that he would be in no mood for talking, and he didn't feel like irritating anyone right now.

Emily looked over to Bob with concern. "Bad day?" she asked him from the table.

Bob looked to her. "I never want to step foot in that place again Emily. You know what three group sessions can do to someone in there? They drive you crazy," he explained to her.

"Would you have to join the people that drove you to insanity?" she joked.

"That's not funny," Bob quickly replied.

Her smile instantly faded. "I guess that answers my question," Emily stated, slightly taken aback from the tone of irritation in his voice. "Would you like a drink?" she offered, heading to the kitchen because she already knew what his answer was going to be.

"Please," he responded, looking back forward.

Emily got him his usual drink and joined him on the couch as she handed it to him. "I thought you liked your job," she said, curling up next to him and putting her arm around him.

Bob took a sip of his drink. "I like my job, in my office, talking to my patients," he explained to her and then took another sip. He then looked to his wife, seeing that she still didn't quite get it yet. "It would be like if you went to another school and had to teach kids that you knew would most likely never get anywhere anyways, and then on top of that, you, you couldn't actually teach them. All you could do is just hand them the books and tell them good luck while half of them are glaring at you and the other half are sobbing uncontrollably," he told her, hoping that she would get the connection.

Emily looked to him with disgust. "I would quit," she replied and then sat back, taking her arm back.

"Well, that's the difference between a psychiatrist and psychologist. I talk to the people that need help, and they talk to the people, watch, monitor and prescribe meds to those who are legitimately mentally ill, and most of them stuck that way for the rest of their lives," he informed her.

Emily watched as he finished his drink, wondering exactly what he saw or heard today that bothered him so much. There had to have been something that upset him, not just the place and not just the type of people he was working with.

She took the empty glass and carried it over to the kitchen sink. "Well, at least you don't have to go back there," she mentioned, hoping that it might help him a little.

"I hope not," he sighed. He then stood up and pulled the picture out of his pocket, carelessly tossing it onto the table. "I'm going to go get changed before dinner," he announced.

"All right honey," Emily responded, her eyes falling to the item on the table. She briefly glanced up to the door before heading over and inspecting the object.

"Bob?" she asked, forming a smirk as she looked over the picture.

"Yes?" he responded, coming to the doorway as he finished buttoning his shirt.

"Where did you get this?" she implored. Her eyes going through the faces on the photo, stopping over each of them.

"One of the patients handed that to me. Told me that they never wanted to see that thing again," he dryly answered. He watched her, wondering why she was so interested in that picture. It was just a picture.

"My fifth grade class picture," she stated more to herself, softly laughing.

"Really?" Bob asked, now growing curious. He went over and stood beside her.

"Yeah," she answered and then pointed to the young girl with dark hair sitting on the bottom row of the steps in the left corner. "The unhappy girl right there with the frilly dress and bow in her hair? That's me."

Bob looked down and studied the picture for a moment. "Didn't like that day?" he joked.

Emily looked up to him and smiled. "I didn't like dressing up, especially for an entire day," she explained.

Bob took a second and laughed at his wife in the picture, but quickly, the words from the woman earlier went through his head. "How, uh, how well do you remember these people?" he questioned, turning serious a bit too quickly for Emily's liking.

Emily shrugged and turned the picture over to the other side. "Well, I ended up going to high school with most of these people," she explained, eyeing the names.

It was weird to her how many people that she had instantly remembered when she read the last names. She pointed to the girl next to her, she was a lot happier than she herself had been on that day. Her long light hair, also with a bow in it that matched her dress. "That's Erin Collins. We actually used to spend a lot of time together for a while there," she informed him.

Bob's eyes quickly moved to his wife with concern. Erin's words earlier, how Jeremy had hurt her. "Could you by any chance point out Jeremy?" he questioned, covering the fact that he was nervous. Although, the fact that Emily was still smiling did calm him. She couldn't be remembering something all too traumatic if she was still happy.

Emily looked up to him, perplexed. "Why Jeremy?" she asked. She hadn't thought of that boy in years, let alone even mention his name. "Was that who was there today?" she questioned.

"The most that I can tell you is that he was mentioned. I was just curious," he explained, looking down to picture.

Emily sighed and looked down to the picture. "He's actually right next to Erin," she told him, pointing to him.

Bob eyed him. The young boy with dark, messy hair. His face held no expression, yet his eyes seemed dark. "You, you didn't hang around with him too often, did you Emily?" he implored, looking up to her from the picture.

Emily smirked as she went to look to him. She was planning on making some joke about him being jealous of her past boyfriends, but as soon as she saw the concern in his eyes, the smirk quickly faded and was replaced with the same concern. "Not too often. No one did," she answered. "Why?"

Bob watched her for a moment. He knew that Erin was in the sanitarium for a reason, and that she might not be completely there, but he had to make sure that Emily had not been hurt. If Jeremy was the one to send Erin there, he wanted to make sure that Emily hadn't been hiding anything. "Again, just, um, just curious," he replied.

Emily nodded, even though she was still confused as to what was going on with her husband. She looked back down to the picture and studied the faces. The blonde girl at the opposite end of the steps from her and Erin, Julia Cotton, the girl with the bluest eyes and blondest hair, it almost made her look ghostly in the picture. Next to her, Ruth Reynolds, another blonde, but not nearly as light as Julia's, she always looked a little sad. Even in the picture, she was staring down out of the corners of her eyes. In the middle next to Jeremy, Greg Peters, the class clown, upset in the picture because they made him take off his hat that he always wore. Up in the next row, Mary Higgins, dark blonde hair in pigtails and always smiling, one of the sweetest people around. Down the row about three people over, Henry Kline, the smartest boy in the class, the one who was suspicious of most things.

She remembered most of these people. There were faces that she couldn't place yet, but the longer she looked at it, the more and more she could remember.

Looking up, she was about to try and ask Bob who it was that he talked to today, but he had already returned to the bedroom.

Her eyes went back down to the picture as she thought back to those days.

(_Emily, Erin, and Mary walked down the street on their way home from school. _

_"You've seriously never been camping before?" Emily questioned, completely shocked, looking to her friend as if she had to be joking. _

_Mary hugged her books to her chest and shook her head. "Nope," she replied, laughing at Emily's reaction. _

_While the other two were talking, Erin stopped and looked to the house across the street from them. There wasn't really anything unusual about it when it came to house looked. It was what was inside of it. "Hey," she called to others. _

_Emily and Mary stopped and turned back to see what she wanted. "Yes?" Emily responded before following her gaze to the house. "Oh," she softly whispered in realization. _

_"I don't like this place. Let's keep going," Mary insisted. _

_Emily looked to her and smiled. "Don't be silly, it's just a house. Besides, Jeremy never hurt anyone," she stated and then went back to Erin, who's eyes were locked on the place. _

_"You ever get curious?" Erin implored with a smirk on her face, her eyes still on the house. _

_"Sometimes," Emily answered. _

_"Well I don't! Now please let's leave," Mary begged, getting more and more freaked out by the minute. _

_Emily looked over and laughed as she saw Mary nervously watching the house. "Let's go before she has a heart attack over this place," she insisted. _

_Erin stared to the house for another moment and then went ahead and followed Emily and Mary._)

Emily just carelessly tossed the picture back down on the table. Her eyes distantly staring down towards the photo, but not really at the photo. She hadn't thought about any of that stuff for a long time, and now, what she couldn't quite recall now, disturbed her.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Remembering

_"I haven't heard form her yet. You think everything's okay?" _

_Emily knew that voice, she knew it, she just couldn't see the face. All she could see was the ground and the sky as she swung on the swing set. The most that she could tell about her surroundings was that it was fall, because the leaves were changing colors and that she was on a playground. _

_"I don't know," Emily answered. "Maybe she's just sick."_

_"Probably. You know how dirty that old shed is." _

_"Maybe she just skipped," Emily replied. _

_"For two weeks?" _

Emily slightly jumped as she woke from her dream. The room was still dark, she observed, so it was still the middle of the night.

The last thing that she wanted to do was to wake Bob, but she had to go and do something else. Anything. Read, watch television, maybe even clean a little. The dream hadn't scared her, in a sense, but it had disturbed her, and she had no idea why. In a way, that bothered her even more than the dream itself.

Carefully, she sat up and turned on the light. She glanced over to make sure that she hadn't woken Bob. She didn't. Good.

She made her way to the door and stopped a moment and turned back, watching him sleep a brief moment. He looked a lot more calm than he did earlier, something that comforted her.

The door closed behind her and she headed over to the kitchen to make some tea. It was going to be a long night, she could already see that. On her way over though, she froze at the sight of the picture.

There was something about it this time that caught her attention. Without even thinking about it, she started walking around the couch and over to the coffee table. She sat down on the couch and gingerly picked up the old picture. Her eyes went straight to Jeremy. There was something that Bob wasn't telling her, and it was just now, really starting to bother her. Not just because there was something that she didn't know, but because she felt that she really needed to know.

She turned the picture over, reading over the names. Erin Collins, Jeremy Peters, Greg Perry, Ruth Reynolds, Julia Cotton, Mary Higgins, and Henry Kline. That was seven people out of her class of thirty that she could remember.

The more that she thought about these people, the more that she was remembering. The time when Henry told her and Erin to stay away from Jeremy's house because he believed that Jeremy was truly demented. She remembered how naive Julia could be at times. How Greg had a crush on Julia and how he would pick on Jeremy sometimes. Ruth liked Henry so she would always make sure to keep on Jeremy's good side.

"Emily?"

Emily jumped as she turned to look to Bob, who was standing in the doorway to the bedroom.

"What are you doing up?" he implored. The second that he noticed the photo though, he was able to put the pieces together.

Emily sighed as she shrugged. "I don't really know," she admitted, setting the picture back down on the table. There was something, but what was she going to tell him? That she had a dream about swinging and talking to a somewhat familiar voice that could possibly just belong to one of her students? That she was looking at a picture because she was slightly disturbed and thought that staring at faces would help? That she was thinking there was more to remembering who had a crush on who in grade school?

Really, the more that she thought about it to herself, she had nothing at all. Maybe some random dreams and memories, but then again, how could she be sure that these were real memories? Sometimes things were just made up in your mind, convincing you that you actually did remember something, when it never happened.

Bob was tired, and he did want to go back to bed, but he was more worried about Emily. "Is there uh, is there something wrong?" he inquired, as he walked over and joined her on the couch.

"I'm afraid I don't know that one either Bob," she answered, glancing back to the picture. "I can remember useless little things from years ago, but I can't figure out why it bothers me so much," she explained.

"Did the picture bring this up?" Bob implored.

"I think so," Emily responded. That had to be it. That photo was grabbing her attention every time she was just in the same room with it. "I had this dream, it can't mean anything, but I think I was a little girl again, and I was talking to this other little kid. We were on a playground and I guess someone was missing," she told him, still trying to figure it out herself.

Bob nodded. Now, he was worried. The last thing he wanted was for Emily to be losing sleep and hurting herself over a patient, especially one that wasn't even his. "Do you uh, have uh notebook that you could use?" he questioned.

"Yeah," Emily answered. She got up and headed over to the desk where she kept a couple extra notebooks and such.

"Good," Bob responded. "Now, now every time that you remember something that relates to that picture right there, I want you to write it down. If there's something bothering you, but you don't know what, it's probably something you blocked out," he explained. "I suggest you write down your dreams in there too," he added.

This way, she could try and pieces together and figure out what it was that was bothering her. He had tried this on a couple of his own patients before and it had worked.

"Okay," Emily replied, sitting back down next to him. She took a second and went over the cover of the notebook as she thought about what she wanted to ask him earlier. Should she really ask who it was that he saw today? Would he even give her an answer?

"Bob?" she carefully began, looking up to him with desperate eyes. "Who was it that you saw today? I know it was someone in this picture and I need to know who it was," she pleaded.

Bob nodded in understanding. "I saw Erin Collins today," he answered, although he knew that he really shouldn't have. He couldn't just let Emily sit there and wonder about it though, letting it get to her.

"Oh," she whispered, her eyes going back down to the picture on the table. "I see."

It was weird, she couldn't remember anything about this girl after the fifth or sixth grade. She knew that they were best friends for a while. Maybe they got in a fight and stopped talking? Either that, or she might have moved, she is in Chicago now. She could have moved here when she was younger. Still though, she thought that she would remember writing to her or something. Most people don't just instantly cut themselves off from their best friend and ignore their entire existence for no reason.

"Does that make you think of something?" Bob implored. He knew that she was thinking of something, but he couldn't tell whether or not is was something that was troubling her yet. She just looked distant.

"I can't remember anything about her from after the fifth grade," she admitted, keeping her eyes down on the photo. She then looked up to Bob. "You would think that being best friends, that I would at least remember something about her later on," she stated.

"Maybe, maybe she moved away or something," Bob suggested. From what he had heard today, she probably did move away just to get away from Jeremy.

"Maybe," Emily absently replied. She set the notebook down on the table and headed back into the den. A moment later, she returned back out into the living room with a yearbook.

"What, what are you doing?" Bob asked, watching as she opened the book and started flipping through the pages.

"I'm checking to see if Erin was in high school with me," Emily answered. "If she's not, I'll feel a little better about not remembering her so much."

Emily stopped on a page and started running her finger through the names where Collins should be. "She's not in here," Emily stated. "The names go from Robbin Clark to Eddie Daimond."

"Well then, I guess that explains why you don't remember her, she just wasn't there," Bob said. "You think you can go back to bed now?"

"Hold on a second," she said, studying the page and then looking over to the picture. "Julia Cotton isn't in here either," she noted.

Bob sighed. "Look, Emily, I know that you're trying to figure something out here, but I really don't think it's a good idea for you to be obsessing over who did and didn't go to high school with you. You're gonna get yourself all worked up and then tomorrow you're going to have a long day at school and all of this will mean basically nothing." One major concern for him was that he didn't want her looking into things that aren't even important and creating fake memories.

Emily sighed and sat back on the couch. "I guess you're right," she replied. She reached over and took the notebook. "I'm just gonna write a little before I go back to bed."

"All right," Bob responded as he stood up and yawned. "I'll see you in a few minutes then," he said and then headed into the bedroom.

Emily sat there on the couch and curled up in the corner as she grabbed the book and pen off the table.

_- Erin Collins, Jeremy Peters, Julia Cotton, Mary Higgins, Greg Perry, Henry Kline, and Ruth Reynolds. _

_- Used to be best friends with Erin Collins_

_- Henry Kline was over cautious and the smartest in the class_

_- Ruth liked Henry a lot _

_- Erin wanted to explore Jeremy's house_

_- Greg used to pick on Jeremy _

_- Greg and Julia liked each other_

_- Dream about talking to a kid on the swing set about someone missing_

_- Ruth and Henry both warned us to stay away from Jeremy_

_- Jeremy was very quiet and most of us were creeped out by him_

Emily sat back and reread the list. It didn't seem like much yet, but it was a lot more than she had remembered a couple of days ago. It had been so long since she had even thought about these people and what happened that year.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: The Attic

"I was in the house, one time," Erin stated, staring off to towards the door behind her doctor. There was a smirk on her face, a smug one, almost as if she shouldn't even be talking about this.

"And what was it like?" he asked, not showing any emotion. Dr. Cromley normally wasn't bothered by the people here, but she was scaring him. Not with the words she was saying, but the look on her face, she always knew something, and it helped him if he just kept his eyes down on his notes rather than up to see her face.

Erin's eyes quickly shot over to him, meeting his eyes as he looked up to her. "A house," she blankly replied.

_Jeremy silently lead Erin through the back door into the kitchen. The young girl looked around the place with wide eyes. "Looks normal to me," she noted._

_Jeremy quickly turned back to her, looking as if she had offended him. _

_"Henry said not to come here," she told him, explaining her comment in hopes that he wouldn't feel so hurt. After she thought about it though, it wouldn't really help at all. "I like it though," she informed him with an encouraging smile. _

_Jeremy offered her a slanted smile. It was the most that he could muster. He motioned for her to follow him through the short hallway and up the stairs. _

_The place still looked like a normal house to her. Most of the kids on the playground talked about this place being old and torn. _

_Jeremy got to the top of the first set of stairs and then pointed to the door to the right of him as he faced the staircase, waiting for her to catch up to him. _

_"Is that the attic?" she implored. It didn't really make a huge difference, she just liked to know where she was going. _

_Jeremy nodded and then opened the door for her and let her walk in first. Right after the door, there was another small section of stairs. Erin cautiously made her way up and looked around the place in awe. There was a old couch, that wasn't in too bad of condition, that sat before a huge window that looked out to the street. Over in the corner of the room there was a desk with scattered papers and pencils and crayons. _

_Erin walked across the wooden floor, noting that it creaked with just about step that she took into the dark corner, one of the only parts of the room that the sun didn't shine on through the window. _

_"These are pretty good," she stated, looking through the drawn pictures on the top of the pile. It was the things that could be seen out the window, there were pictures of the houses, the trees, a few of people walking dogs. Then, under a few of the papers, she discovered a picture of a boy. He was wearing a football jersey and standing in a puddle of blood with his eyes replaced with x's. "Greg," she gasped with realization. _

ooo

"Remember! You're math is due tomorrow! We're grading in class," she called out as the students left her room at the end of the day.

With a sigh, she sat down at her desk and started to go over a few papers that she needed to grade. As she reached over to grab a pen from the top of her desk, she looked up and noticed one of her students was still sitting at their desk. "Nathan?" she asked. "Something wrong?"

Nathan smirked. "My sister got mad at me because she couldn't find me yesterday to take me home because I went to the park, so today I'm staying here until she comes and gets me," he explained.

"She doesn't know you're staying in here does she?" Emily intended to ask, but it came out as more of a statement.

"No ma'am," Nathan replied, smiling even bigger.

"Nathan. I think you should go where she told you to meet her at," Emily stated.

"Nathaniel Cromley," a young girl called to him, standing in the door way with her arms crossed. She narrowed her eyes on the young boy. "Tommy told me where you were."

"I wasn't at the park though," he stated.

She rolled her eyes and then looked to the teacher. "I'm sorry you're stuck with him all day," she said and then stopped for a minute. "Hey, I remember you," she said, starting to smile. "Ms. Harrison."

Emily looked to her a minute and laughed. "It's been a while since anyone's called me that. I'm Mrs. Hartley now," Emily explained.

"Do you remember me?" the girl questioned.

Emily studied her face a moment.

"I claimed that I was claustrophobic with anxiety disorders so that you would let me sit by the windows all the time," she stated, hoping to jog her memory.

"Rhonda. Ronnie," Emily responded, slightly laughing. "I remember that."

"Our dad's a psychiatrist over at Smith's Grove. I heard a lot of that random stuff all the time," Ronnie explained. "His name's Tim Cromley."

Emily's eyes lit up as she laughed. "I didn't know that was your father. My husband's one of his friends, he just filled in for him over there," she responded. She felt kind of stupid for not noticing, but Cromley wasn't too rare of a name and she had only talked to their mother before when it came to conferences. That, and the fact that the last time she saw Tim was about six years ago, he stopped by himself to the wedding reception.

"Stop being friendly with my teacher, it's creepy," Nathan told her as he grabbed his back pack and headed for the door.

"Bye," Ronnie said as she followed him out the door.

"Bye," Emily replied, laughing. As soon as the laughter faded though, her thoughts went to Erin. She had been wanting to go see her, ask her about Jeremy. The only problem with that though, was that Bob would never let her. He would tell her that it was a bad idea, that it would cause more harm than good.

ooo

Bob walked into the apartment and closed the door behind him. "Hi Emily!" he greeted as he made his way over to the couch.

"Hi Bob," she replied with a smile from the table. She had been writing in the notebook. She closed the book and headed over to the kitchen to grab his usual drink for him. "How was your day?" she implored.

"Good," he answered and then looked over to her. "How uh, how about your's?" he inquired. The fact that she had been writing told him that she remembered something. He wanted to know what all she was recalling. Again though, she didn't seem too bad, so what ever she was writing down couldn't be too bad.

"It was good," she said, handing him the drink and sitting down next to him. "I talked to a student I had while I was still known as Ms. Harrison," she told him.

"Really?" he implored.

"Yeah, her little brother is in my class. Cromley's kids," she explained, hoping that he would pick up on the hint.

"The one that I know?" he questioned. He was aware that he had kids, he just didn't know how old they were or what school they went to.

"That's the one," she answered and then stood up and headed back to the kitchen. "Kind of a weird coincidence isn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Bob responded as he turned straight forward. Something told him that this was leading to something more.

"Bob?" Emily called to him. She was finishing dinner as she was talking to him. For some reason, she felt almost scared to ask him the question. It was like a child asking a parent what would happen if they failed a subject in school.

"What is it?" he responded.

"I think I want to go see Erin," she casually announced.

"Take it from someone who's recently seen her. No you don't," he said.

"I want to talk to her. I mean, there has to be something big I'm not remembering, and obviously she does," Emily explained, hoping that he would take her request a little more serious.

Bob sighed and looked to her with concern. "Emily, she herself isn't quite sure what she remembers, and from what's been going on with you lately, I don't think you would know the difference," he informed her. "I just don't want her making things worse."

Emily leaned on the counter and looked to him. "How would it make things worse?" she asked.

"When people repress memories, it's to cover up something that traumatized them. Sometimes in order to keep them repressed, the uh, the person will create fake memories in their place. No matter what happens, it's going to be a little traumatic when the real memories come back, but it could make the whole thing a little more traumatic if there are a lot of fake memories in place before hand," he explained to her.

"Okay," she sighed in defeat.

Bob looked over to the notebook still lying there on the table. "Do you mind if I see what you've written so far?" he requested.

Emily went and handed the notebook to him right before setting the table for dinner.

Bob opened it to discover that she had already filled two pages with notes.

_- Erin Collins, Jeremy Peters, Julia Cotton, Mary Higgins, Greg Perry, Henry Kline, and Ruth Reynolds_

_- Used to be best friends with Erin Collins _

_- Henry Kline was over cautious and the smartest in the class_

_- Ruth liked Henry a lot _

_- Erin wanted to explore Jeremy's house _

_- Greg used to pick on Jeremy _

_- Greg and Julia liked each other_

_- Dream about talking to a kid on a swing set about someone missing _

_- Ruth and Henry both warned us to stay away from Jeremy _

_- Jeremy was quiet and most of us were creeped out by him _

_- Erin, Julia, Greg, and Jeremy did not go to high school with me _

_- Mary was more scared of Jeremy than anyone else _

_- Erin became close to Jeremy after she started feeling sorry for him. I remember one day she told me that she couldn't go biking with me because she was going to see Jeremy. I feel like this was a normal occurrence for a while, as if I didn't find this weird or odd. Come to think of it, most of what I know about Jeremy came from her. _

_- Mary warned me that Ruth had gotten close to Jeremy like Erin had _

_- Talked to Cromley's kids today, felt like I instantly had to go see Erin, had to go say that I was sorry. I still don't know what I'm sorry for though. _

_- Jeremy only spoke a few times. Mostly remained silent _

"You remember who liked who in the fifth grade?" Bob implored. "The early days of the matchmaker."

Emily smiled. "I've always had a talent."

"Yeah, a talent for wrecking an entire evening," he quipped.

"If I recall right, I was the one who set us up together," she mentioned.

"Everyone has to get lucky sooner or later," he stated and then gave the page a second look. "You feel like you have to say sorry to Erin?" he implored.

"Yeah," Emily answered. "That's why I wanted to go see her. I don't know what I did to her that was so bad, but maybe that's why we stopped talking to each other," she suggested.

Emily finished setting the table and then slowly looked up to her husband. "Maybe you could tell her that I'm sorry," she cautiously mentioned.

"Emily, I already told you, any contact with her wouldn't help either of you," he explained to her.

"I know," she sighed as she went and got the prepared food to set down on the table.

Bob went and took his seat at the table. "Do you have any idea why you feel so strongly about this?" he asked.

"I don't know," she wearily admitted. "Maybe it's nothing," she said as she sat down next to him. At least, she hoped it was nothing. That couldn't be it though, no one felt this guilty over just nothing. There had to be something that she did or said.

"Did you set her up with Jeremy?" he inquired.

"Bob! I'm serious!" she snapped, a little offended that he choose this time to poke fun at her.

"So am I. I know how you are, and I know that at the age of eleven, you probably didn't really know what you were doing," he told her. "You, you do state that it didn't bother you that she was with him a lot. Obviously you weren't against it."

Emily looked down for a minute and thought. Slowly, she looked up to Bob with widened eyes. Eyes full of fear, full of regret. "I didn't warn her Bob," she softly announced.

"About what?" he asked.

"I don't know," Emily flatly replied. "I just remember telling her that I should have told her earlier and she kept telling me that I was overreacting. I told her to be careful and she said there was nothing to be scared of."

"Are, are you sure that you're remembering all of this right? I just, I just don't want you feeling guilty over something that didn't even happen," Bob implored. The look on her face though, pretty much told him that she was sure of what happened, and she didn't like it at all.

"That's why I want to apologize, she's there because of me," Emily whispered in disbelief.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Julia

_Emily stared through the dust covered window, one too high for her to look directly out of, so all she could see was the shadow of the tree branch and the cloudy sky behind it. _

_She didn't know where she was, although it did seem familiar to her, and she didn't know who she was with. The sounds of murmurs, unrecognizable voices that she could not distinguish from one another. They were merely whispers. _

_The steady hum was cut with a sharp metallic noise, almost like slamming a door on a bird cage. Everything then, went silent. _

_There was something wet on her arm. She lifted her arm and looked down to see little bright red blood splatters. _

_The silence was interrupted with a sobbing. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a little girl, her white dress covered in blood. Her body trembling as the sobbing got more intense. _

Emily woke up, once again in the middle of the night. Her nerves frazzled as her heart raced. Sitting up, she tried to catch her breath.

As soon as she was able to calm herself down, she laid back into her pillow. It was obvious to her that she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep for a while, but she didn't want to leave the room. She wanted to stay right there, in bed with Bob. Even though he was still asleep, his presence was still better than being alone out in the living room.

ooo

Bob sat in the chair in his office as Elliot sat on the couch. Although he knew that he was supposed to be listening to his patient, his mind was elsewhere. This morning, he could tell that Emily hadn't gotten much sleep. She wouldn't admit to it, but he knew that she wasn't herself, she had been either having nightmares or that she just couldn't sleep.

"Do you think that was the right choice of words?" Elliot asked, pulling Bob back to where he was.

"What?" Bob responded, suddenly realizing that he had missed just about everything that Elliot had told him. He knew that he was talking about buying out a building, but that was about it.

Elliot sighed. "All right, spill," he said.

"I'm sorry Mr. Carlin, I'm just tired this morning," Bob lied.

"No you're not. I know you better than that. Now tell me what's wrong so that I can actually have the session I paid for," Elliot replied.

Bob sighed and decided to give in to him. "Fine Mr. Carlin. I got in a fight with Emily last night and we stayed up half the night trying to resolve it. She, uh, she wants me to come with her to Seattle for a bridal shower and I wanna stay home because I'm not even invited and there is no point in me going." At the moment, he didn't mind telling him anything, just as long as it got him to move on with his problems and away from Emily's. Discussing his wife's issues in the office with a patient was never something that even merely considered. It was out of the question.

"So are you?" Elliot inquired.

"No Mr. Carlin, I'm staying in Chicago," Bob assured him.

"Good, you won. Now can we get back to me?" he requested.

"Sure. Just, just start over again and I promise I'll listen this time," he told him, although he wasn't too sure that he could actually keep that promise.

ooo

Emily sat at her desk while the kids were at gym class. She had about fifty minutes to herself and she had something that she had to do. She took out a piece of paper and started writing.

_Erin, _

_I don't know whether or not you remember me, but I am Emily Hartley, I was Emily Harrison back in Seattle. When we were kids we used to live right outside of the city. We were best friends for a while. Remember that? _

_Well, anyways, I have something that I have to tell you. I am not sure why, but I feel as though I owe you an apology. I feel like I should have warned you about Jeremy, like there was something that I could have prevented. Again, I am not certain of what happened back then, I seem to have some gaps in the story. All I know is that I feel guilty and that Jeremy had to have done something horrific. I also remember that there was a short time period in which you two were friends. _

_If I am wrong about any of this, I am sorry. I just had to let you know, that I am sorry for what ever happened. _

_If you do receive this message, please let me know. Write a note back or something. I just have to know that you are aware that I am truly sorry. _

_Emily_

She set her pen down and reread the letter. No matter what she said in it, she still felt that it wasn't enough. After last night's dream, her urge to go see Erin had grown stronger. All she wanted was to be able to see her, even if only just to see if she had any scars. Anything to explain what that dream could have been about last night.

Reluctantly, she folded the letter and stuffed it into an envelope and wrote: "To Erin Collins" on it.

It was right after she had finished that the kids all came back into the room. She eyed Nathan for a second, wondering whether or not she could trust him to get the letter to his father to give to Erin. Maybe not. He seemed to forget his homework a lot, along with his lunch and permission slips and pencils. He just forgot a lot of things most of the time.

She could trust his sister though, she hoped. She couldn't remember her forgetting most of her things.

'That's great,' she thought to herself. She could remember details about her students that she had six or seven years ago, but she couldn't remember a huge event that caused her friend to go insane, and could have also been her fault. That made a lot of sense.

"Nathan? Can you come here for a second?" she called to him.

"Ooh!" the entire class chimed in, thinking he was in trouble.

Emily looked over and smirked, concealing a laugh as she saw Nathan start to worry. "You're not in trouble," she assured him.

Nathan stood up and turned back to laugh at the rest of the class. "You guys are stupid," he laughed.

"Nathan!" Emily snapped.

Nathan quickly turned to her and quickly walked to the desk. "Yes ma'am?" he timidly asked.

"Tell your sister that I want to talk to her today before she goes home," Emily instructed.

"Why?" he asked, well more like whined. That was how Emily heard it at least.

"Do it and I'll forget that you just called everyone stupid," she offered.

"Okay," he complied and went back to his seat.

ooo

"So, what did you want?" Ronnie asked, standing in the doorway after school.

Emily looked up and smiled. "Do you think you can do me a small favor?" she questioned as she reached over and grabbed the envelope.

"Sure, why not?" Ronnie replied as she stepped closer to the desk.

"Do you think that you can give this to your father and ask him to make sure that this gets to one of his patients, Erin Collins?" she requested, handing her the envelope. Right now, she did feel a little silly, asking a teenaged girl to deliver mail for her, but it was the only way that she could think to get it accomplished. She knew that Bob wouldn't take her there, and she didn't have the address, and this way, she could have some trust that it would get to Erin.

Ronnie brushed her hair back with her hand as she accepted the envelope and studied it. For some reason, she felt uncomfortable doing this. Ever since she was a little girl, her daddy had always told her that he had to keep his work life and his family separate. No matter what, his patients could not know about his family, and his family could not know anything about his patients. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but why?" she questioned, looking back up to Emily.

"Erin's my friend and I didn't have any stamps at home, so yesterday when I found out about you and Nathan, I thought maybe I could just ask one of you to take it to your father," she lied. Again, she felt ridiculous doing this, but she was desperate at the moment. All she needed was to know that Erin got her apology and she would be fine.

"I guess," Ronnie answered, still unsure of what to think. "You do realize that I am only sixteen right?" she implored.

"Well I certainly think that you're old enough to hand a letter to someone," Emily laughed. She could see that Ronnie really didn't want to do this and decided that maybe she should give up on this. "Here, you don't have to," she said.

Ronnie noticed the drop in Emily's face and sighed. "I'll do it," she assured her with a weary smile. She had always been one of those people that had a hard time disappointing others.

"Are you sure?" Emily was starting to see how uneasy she was really feeling with this and didn't want to force her into anything.

"Yeah," Ronnie reassured her. "I'll let you know when he takes it."

"Thank you," Emily called to her as she turned to leave.

"Sure," Ronnie replied on her way out the door. The more she thought about it, it shouldn't be that bad. It wasn't like she was the one going in there and handing the letter to Erin. Besides, it was just one letter. That was all.

ooo

Erin sat alone in her room. Dr. Cromley had just left her and she wanted to wait until she was alone to read her letter. Something told her that it was about to be something personal.

Carefully, she opened the envelope, running the tip of her finger along the edge of the flap before she pulled the letter out and unfolded it.

Her eyes carefully read through the letter. "Emily," she whispered to herself. She remembered her. As a matter of fact, she remembered her real well.

A smirk formed on her face as she got to the end of the letter. Yes, she understood where Emily was coming from, and she knew exactly why she had felt guilty.

"You can stay right here," she said, setting the letter down on the table beside her. She pulled out a piece of paper and started to write back to her.

_Emily, _

_I accept your apology. You were a bit late there at warning me. I knew though. I knew all along and just didn't care. It was all a stupid little game. You know? Some huge contest I guess. _

_The first time I stepped foot into that house, I found out just how much people had been lying, and you know what? I resented most of you in a way. Not you in particular, you never said too much about Jeremy, but there were jerks who did. There were idiots who would pick on him. They never got to pay though. Not like some people did._

_At the same time though, there was a lot about Jeremy that most people didn't know. We all found out though, that last day that we saw him. The day that he apologized to the entire class and then ran out of the room. That was the last day that I ever sat in that classroom, the last day that I ever saw any of you. _

_Anyways, even though I accept your apology, I think there is someone who needs it more. If you're going to put all of your energy into trying to receive forgiveness, I think Julia deserves an apology. She suffered the most from all of this you know. _

Erin looked up from the letter, tears in her eyes. There was a lot of pain. She knew that Emily was not to blame, but she needed to put everything on someone else. She needed for once to feel like it was all someone else.

_All you had to do was tell her what was going on, and she wouldn't have come that day. You knew and you didn't tell her. She listened to you too. It wasn't like you were just randomly telling someone that hey, this day may change everything. You didn't try to stop me from going along with everything, you didn't try to explain anything to Jeremy, you just let it all happen. I bet you don't even know where Julia is now do you? _

_Her last day came before either mine or Jeremy's. You knew everything Emily. You knew what was going on, you knew how messed up Jeremy was and you knew that I was on his side. All you had to do was talk to Julia, but you didn't. So much you could have prevented, so much shit that could have been avoided, and you shut up and let it all happen. No interference what so ever. Every one trusted you, it wasn't like people would have thought that you were just mistaken or being stupid._

_I just have one question for you. Why? Were you scared? Did you just think this was all a game? Either way, you turned out to be a bad friend. I hope you're happy with the results. _

Tears of anger and frustration streaked her face. She had just allowed herself to pour out all of her emotions into those last paragraphs. Erin pulled open the drawer and took a folder out and opened it. Inside were newspaper clippings that she had been saving. She searched through them until she found the right one and then then folded it up, and slipped it into a new envelope along with the letter.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Sinister Games (part 1)

Emily sat at the table reviewing her notebook. Bob wasn't home yet and she needed the time to herself to go over what she remembered and to try to piece it together.

She still felt bad about having Ronnie be her messenger, but she had to let it go now. It was done and over with.

_- Dream about being in a wooden, broken down building with a girl covered in blood. Some sort of metal contraption. _

That place, it seemed familiar to her. There was something about that place that made her feel like it should have stuck with her. Something important had happened there. Something deeply disturbing.

Her eyes went from the notebook to the photo that was beside her. When she was writing, she liked to keep the photo by her, just in case it would help her to remember.

_Emily was about to walk out of the classroom along with Julia and Mary. Right as she was about to reach the door though, someone grabbed her arm. She jumped and looked back behind her. "Jeremy?" she asked. _

_Jeremy stood there, no expression in his dark eyes as he watched her. He reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out an invitation. His other hand, he removed it from her arm and grabbed her hand, holding it up so that he could place the invitation in it and leave. _

_Emily saw out of the corner of her eyes, Jeremy slip one to Julia too. She opened the envelope right away and immediately looked over the letter. _

Frustrated, Emily rested her head in her hands. There was something on that letter and she couldn't remember what it was.

There was a knock on the door that distracted her from her thoughts. "Come in!" she called.

Howard came in wearing his uniform and carrying his phone. "Hi Emily," he greeted, stepping inside.

"Hi Howard," Emily replied, placing the picture into the notebook before closing it.

"You think I can wait over here? I might be called in to fly and I'm getting bored by myself over there," Howard requested.

"Sure," Emily replied, smiling to him. "You have time for dinner too?" she invited him, knowing that he would try to get her to invite him.

"Possibly," Howard answered, looking over to the stove to see if he could see what it was.

Emily stood up and headed over to the oven. "The spaghetti's done, I just have to wait on the garlic bread, which should be done as soon as Bob get's home," she explained, checking on the bread.

"Well if you have any extra, you know," Howard stated.

Emily softly laughed. She knew that when ever Howard was home by himself that he would be coming over and asking for dinner. She knew to always make a little extra for him. "There's plenty Howard," she assured him.

"Well, if you insist," Howard said, setting the phone down on the couch. He made his way over to the table and sat down in the chair where he usually sat. "I just hope that I don't get called to fly down to Las Vegas right in the middle of dinner."

With the lack of sleep, stress, and listening to Howard, Emily was a little distracted from what she was doing. She went to grab the pot that the tomato sauce was cooking in without her oven mitts. She gasped as she instinctively let go of the rim of the pot, dropping it back onto the stove and causing the sauce to splatter.

A numbing sensation flooded through out her body as soon as her eyes noticed the red splatters, following the odd sound. Her eyes glued to her newly stained sleeve.

_Emily stood in the old shed with Julia by her side and Greg more in front of them. There was a table with a bear trap on it. _

_"I really don't like this," Julia muttered, slightly beginning to crouch behind Greg. _

_"Don't worry about it," Greg assured her as he looked over to the door, impatiently waiting for Jeremy to return. _

_Julia looked over to Emily with concern. "Aren't you a little nervous?" she implored. _

_Emily shrugged. "Not really. It's Jeremy, and Erin's fine and she spends a lot of time with him," she answered. Really, she thought that this was just going to be something kind of stupid that they would sit there and watch and then just leave. _

_Jeremy finally walked back into the shed, a garter snake writhing in his hand as he closed the door behind him and walked over to the table. _

_Emily noticed something about his eyes, they seemed darker. It scared her. Now, she wanted to leave, but she couldn't Not with everyone else just standing there. _

_Jeremy held the snake up, a sinister grin pasted on his usually expressionless face as he dangled the creature over the bear trap. As slow as he could, he lowered the snake down into the trap and then took his other hand and grabbed a rock off the table. Gingerly, maybe being too cautious, he held the rock adjacent to the snake, right above the opening of the trap. Then, without warning, he dropped the rock causing the trap to cut the snake in three parts, splattering a tiny amount of blood. _

"Emily?"

Emily was brought back to reality as Howard stood before her, grabbing her shoulders. "Emily! Are you okay?"

"I'm, I'm fine," she absently responded, grasping back onto reality.

"Are you sure?" Howard frantically implored. "You looked like you were about to pass out."

"I'm okay now Howard. Really," she reassured him, offering a small, forced smile. Her eyes met Howard's. It was easy to see that he was still scared, but so was she really. Now, she was just wondering if maybe he could see how scared she was, how she was caught off guard, and how she now had some sort of realization of what was going on when she younger.

"Okay," Howard replied, letting go of her shoulders.

Emily cautiously stepped around Howard and went back to the stove, this time grabbing her oven mitts. She could tell that Howard was watching her as he went back to his seat. She didn't mind though. As a matter of fact, she felt a tiny bit safer that way. Even if there wasn't much that he could do, there was still someone there with her just in case that same thing happened again to her.

That little flash back triggered so much for her. She could remember talking to Henry and Ruth about it.

_Emily, Mary, Henry, and Ruth sat in a small little open area in the woods. Emily sat up on one of the tree branches that was closer down to the ground while Henry and Ruth sat together on a log and Mary stood near Emily. _

_"Why is she so interested in Jeremy?" Ruth questioned. _

_"He's a mystery to her," Emily answered. "Besides, you used to be friends with him. What did you like about him?" _

_Ruth nodded. "I felt bad, he was getting teased by Greg and his friends and you know, I wanted to show him that not everyone's like that. Besides, he was nice at first. We would go up to his attic and watch the neighbors, we would walk through the woods together and sometimes we would draw pictures. He even talked to me sometimes. He told me about how his parents were never around and he knew they didn't like him," she explained. _

_Emily watched her, wondering how it would be to have parents that didn't love you. Her's loved her, and now, after hearing that, she did appreciate her's a little more. _

_"Really?" Mary asked. Now she too felt bad for him. _

_"Yeah, but then we found out how mad he was at Greg. We found pictures of him with blood. Even that wasn't as bad as the time he showed us his pet mouse named Greg," Henry told them. _

_"He has a mouse named Greg?" Emily implored, finding it hard to believe that he would name anything after that boy. _

_"He had a mouse named Greg, up until he sliced it's neck and watched it bleed out on the table in the shed in front of us and a couple of random kids that he gave invitations to," Henry responded. _

_"Those stories about the shed are true?" Mary inquired, now truly disturbed. _

_"They are," Ruth confirmed. "He always invites kids from classes above us though. The only reason we got in was because we were his friends." _

_"Erin never said anything about being invited to one of his show things," Emily stated, starting to get worried. _

_Henry laughed. "Probably not. He saw it chased us off and he doesn't want to do the same with Erin. He might be trying to keep this friend this time," he informed her. _

Emily knew, it was then that she should have warned Erin. Now, she wanted to know what happened to her. It was probably out in the shed, but she couldn't be certain.

Another question that bothered her was, why didn't anyone tell any of the adults? Were they all scared? Did they maybe believe that Jeremy had it in him to punish anyone who did tell on him? Was there something else that she was leaving out, like someone going missing before all of this maybe?

It didn't matter. Not anymore. The damage had been done, and all she wanted to focus on was what the actual damage was.

ooo

Erin sat in her room, alone. No one was around at the moment, so she decided to act quick.

The letter that she had received from Emily gave her someone to blame. It gave her someone to shove the guilt onto and free herself.

There was a catch though, there was only one way to free herself of all the blame, and that was through the sweet escape of death. This way, she could even pin her own suicide on Emily, leave everything to her and finally be able to rest in peace after all these years. After being in and out of mental hospitals since the age of eleven. After moving across the country to try and forget and start over, it was all finally over for her.

Erin had been able to catch Doctor Cromley once again to hand him the letter that she had written back to Emily, so she was pretty sure that Emily would receive it. Now, all she had to do was go through with her plan.

She took one final nervous look around to make sure that she wasn't being watched and then went over to her bed where she reached under her pillow. Earlier that day, she had gotten together with another patient who helped her steal a bottle of sleeping pills. She pulled the bottle out and closely looked it over, eying the instructions on the bottle and then opened it, pouring a handful of small pills into the palm of her hand.

"Thank you Emily," she said before throwing her head back and tossing the pills into her mouth.

ooo

Bob and Emily sat on the couch together. He had his arm around her while she rested her head on his shoulder.

The movie they were watching together had just ended. "Well Emily," he began as he started to lean forward to stand up, but he noticed that she wasn't sitting up or responding. Sitting back, he looked over and saw that she was asleep.

Normally, he would have woken her up so that they could both go to bed, but he knew that she hadn't been sleeping well lately. He had heard about the flashback, and Emily had told him about what she remembered, but she didn't want to go into detail about it. She just seemed, distant.

So, instead of waking her, he just stayed in his position and tried to get comfortable enough to sleep himself.

ooo

_Emily walked into her old classroom. The room was dark, there was a coating of dust on the cracked windows. There were cob webs in various places, such as the corners of the room, going from the backs of the chairs to the seats, some even from the legs of the chairs to the floor. There were desks that were over turned, and the chalk board had "I DIDN'T MEAN TO" written on it._

_Emily went up to the teacher's desk and ran her finger across the top, removing a streak of dust. As she lifted her hand and rubbed the small collection of dust between her index finger and thumb, she heard a faint sobbing. _

_"Hello?" she called, her body tensing up as she froze. _

_No response. The sobbing continued. She convinced herself to slowly turn and examine the room. Over in the corner, she spotted Erin from when she was eleven. _

_"Erin?" she implored, cautiously stepping towards her. "Erin? What's wrong?" _

_The little girl turned to her and pulled her hands away from her tear stricken face. Her dress had blood down the front of it. "I'm sorry," she softly cried. _

_"It's okay," Emily nervously answered, approaching her. _

_"Why didn't you stop us?" Erin asked. _

_"I, I don't know," Emily confessed. _

_"Why didn't you stop us? You could've stopped us!" she cried, on the verge of screaming. _

Emily awoke on the couch, her face wet from crying in her sleep. She instantly stood up and went and grabbed her notebook to write down her dream. This one, unlike the others, just dug at her guilt. The others scared her to some degree.

This one was harder to get through though, because she knew that there had to be some truth to it. There had to be something that she could have prevented that she didn't. She already knew about that part.

Most likely, it had to do something with those shows that Jeremy would put on in his shed. Why else would she have a flashback about that?

"What time is it?" Bob groggily inquired.

"It's about two," Emily answered, not even looking up from her writing.

Bob looked over to her with concern. "You know, you, you can talk to me about all of this," he reminded her.

Emily set her pen down and looked over to him. "I know," she replied.

"Do you also know that uh, that it's really kind of vain to think that one little thing you might have done when you were a little kid is the source of someone else's problems?" he questioned.

"How is it vain to own up to your own mistakes?" Emily asked.

Bob sighed as he stood to his feet. "Emily? How well would you say I know you?" he inquired as he walked over and sat down at the table with her.

"If I had to guess, I'd say pretty well," she replied, beginning to smile.

"Emily, you can be pushy at times, you can be sarcastic, stubborn, a bad matchmaker, and completely out there at times," he started and then sighed. "But I know for a fact that you would never go out of your way to hurt anyone."

"Those are some lovely words you used there to describe me," she replied.

"That doesn't, that doesn't help your case against sarcasm. Besides, that's that's not even the point. I was trying to say that no matter what you're a good person. You're not out there to hurt anyone," he explained.

Emily sighed and looked down towards the table. Again, she appreciated what he was trying to do, but he just didn't seem to understand. It didn't matter whether or not it was intentional, all that mattered was that it happened and it was because of something that she failed to do. It would be like your breaks not working on your car and you run a red light, causing an accident. It wasn't your fault that you didn't stop, but you did hurt a lot of people, maybe even got some of them killed. No matter how you look at it, you're still going to feel guilty over what had happened, thinking of everything that you could have done differently.

"I wish it was that easy, but it's not," she told him. "Haven't you ever felt guilty over something that you didn't really do? Like one of your patients does something that you could have told them not to do, but you didn't warn against it?"

"That's a completely different topic. I'm responsible for my patients. You, you weren't responsible for what your friends did. It, it wasn't your job to uh to go around and make sure that everything was safe. You were also eleven years old. You weren't their mother, you couldn't control what they did," he informed her, hoping that she might grasp on to what he was saying.

"I guess you're right," she replied, looking up to him.

"Thank you," Bob said and then got up from the table. "You think we can go to bed now?"

Emily laughed. "Sure," she said as she stood and joined him. His words did ease her guilt. Maybe now she could get a little bit of sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Sinister Games (part 2)

Emily was making her way to her classroom. Right outside her door, she stopped and set her briefcase down on the floor and started going through her purse for the keys to open her door.

"Mrs. Hartley?"

Emily turned and saw Rhonda and Nathan standing behind her. "Good morning you two," she greeted with a smile.

Ronnie shook her head. "I'm afraid not, I have something to tell you," she announced.

Emily's smile faded. "I see," she apprehensively replied. "Hold on, let me unlock the door and we talk inside the room."

"Why do we have to wait until we're inside the room? Just get it over with so that you can leave already," Nathan insisted.

"Oh calm down will you?" Ronnie snapped, crossing her arms and looking to him with disgust.

Nathan turned to her with surprise. "Me? You want me to calm down?" he questioned.

"No, I told myself because my own whining was starting to bug me," she spat.

"Talk about being whiny. You were crying this morning because mom wouldn't let you borrow the iron this morning to straighten your hair!"

"The door's open you two!" Emily huffed. She was getting sick of hearing the two bicker. There was something important for her to hear and she wanted to hear it now.

She lead the two in and sat her things down on her desk. "What is it?" she curtly asked, trying to cover up how nervous she was feeling. She stood there, her arms crossed as she stared down to Ronnie.

Ronnie sighed. "Well, I'm not one hundred percent sure, but that girl that you had me deliver the letter for, her name is Erin Collins right?" she questioned.

"Yes."

Nathan noticed that his sister was hesitating and decided to rush her along. "Go ahead, tell her how you listened in on our dad's phone call," he nudged her.

Ronnie softly glared to Nathan. "I did not," she flatly argued. "I took a message for him because he was gone." She then looked back up to Emily with sympathy. "Erin Collins is in the hospital. My dad got called last night because she attempted suicide. The last I heard, or more like, all I heard was that they pumped her stomach and they were waiting to see how much was still in her system."

Emily's shoulders slumped. "I see," she nearly whispered. Her thoughts were racing, trying to go back and see what she could have said in her letter that would have triggered it. There had to have been something that she said. This couldn't all just be a coincidence.

Emily's eyes shifted off towards the side as her mouth hung slightly agape. She noticeably tensioned up, her hands gripping her arms as they were still crossed before her chest.

Ronnie watched Emily for a moment, her concern growing. "Mrs. Hartley? Are you okay?" she implored. Right now, she honestly thought that Emily was about to have some sort of break down or something.

"I'm fine," Emily replied, snapping out of her little trance. Her hands were trembling though. "Thank you very much for letting me know," she said as she grabbed her things. She then pulled a piece of paper from her desk and scribbled a small note on it before handing it over to Ronnie. "If you could, please hand this in at the office. I have to go now," she stated as she rushed to get out of the room.

ooo

_Emily and Erin walked through the woods together along the stream. "Why have you been spending so much time over at Jeremy's lately? What's over there?" Emily questioned. _

_Erin seemed distant. She kept her eyes down to the ground. Her slowed after the questioned. "Maybe if you would give him a chance you would see," she softly answered. _

_Emily stopped and laughed. "What?" she questioned. _

_Erin had seemed weird for a while now. She seemed to be off on her own more when she wasn't with Jeremy. There was something bothering her, but Emily wasn't quite sure at first. _

_"I just don't understand why everyone has to go out of their way to make fun of him," Erin said._

_"I don't make fun of him," Emily argued. This all seemed very weird to her, and it was starting to bother her. _

_"But you don't stick up for him either!" Erin snapped, bitterly looking up to her. _

_Emily jumped back in surprise. "I'm sorry. The only time Greg ever listens to me though is when he asks me for answers in class. All I would do is irritate him," she explained. _

_Erin sighed and started walking on without Emily. _

_Emily just stood there, dumbly watching her for a second. She wanted to run and catch up to her, ask her what was wrong, but she didn't. Something told her that trying to talk to her would be pointless. _

Emily stood by herself in the elevator, blankly staring at the doors. This time, the elevator seemed to e moving slower than usual. She wanted to talk to her husband, and this was the only thing keeping her from doing so.

As soon as the doors opened to the lobby, she hurried out and briefly stopped at the desk. "Is Bob in there with anyone right now?" she anxiously implored.

Carol saw how upset she was and decided to avoid their usual chat. "Yes. Mr. Carlin, but I can call and tell him that you're here," she offered.

"Thank you," Emily responded, forcing a small smile.

Bob sat in his office with Elliot. They were playing a game of poker. "Call," Bob said as he threw a quarter into the pile.

Before Elliot could make his move, the phone rang.

"Excuse me a second," Bob said as he stood up with his cards.

Elliot looked up to him. "Don't you trust me?" he inquired.

"No," Bob answered.

"Have little confidence in your ability to fix me?" Elliot asked.

Bob sat down and picked up the phone. "I know you too well," he replied before speaking into the phone. "Carol?" He listened for a moment. "Hold on," he instructed and then looked over to Elliot as he covered the mouth piece. "My wife is out there and its important that she sees me, do mind if she comes in?"

"And intrude on my session?"

"Mr. Carlin, we're, we're playing cards," he stated.

"I still paid to be here," he argued.

Bob sighed. "How about, how about I refund you? Or, or maybe the next two sessions free?" he started suggesting anything.

Elliot thought for a second. "Okay, let her in," he announced.

Bob took his hand away from the phone. "You, you can let her in. Thanks Carol," he said and then hung up the phone.

The door opened and Emily quickly entered the room, closing the door behind her. "Before I tell you what happened," she began as she approached his desk. "I should tell you that I sent a letter to Erin apologizing for what I did," she confessed.

"Nice to see you too Mrs. Hartley, and you're welcome for letting you in on my time," Elliot interjected.

Bob and Emily both glanced over to him. "Emily," Bob started, looking back to her. "I know about the letter," he announced as he pulled an envelope out of his desk with her name written on it. "Dr. Cromley dropped this off this morning. He said you had his daughter bring it home to give to him and that last night Erin attempted suicide."

Bob was angry at her, but at the same time, he knew what was going on and that she would be stressed. He had been informed that his daughter was not good at keeping any secrets and that Emily probably already knew what was going on with Erin. It would be better just to wait and talk to her about what she did later. Besides, Dr. Cromley wasn't real upset, he thought it was weird, but he wasn't mad.

"Oh," Emily responded, her eyes studying him, trying to see how upset he was with her. Although, he seemed more concerned than angry, something that bothered her even more at the moment.

"Who's Erin?" Elliot inquired.

"Good bye Mr. Carlin," Bob replied.

Elliot stood up and walked over to grab his cards back from Bob. As he took them, he looked to see what he had. "You suck at poker, you know that?" he remarked as he went back and grabbed his coat. "And remember, two free sessions," he sternly reminded before leaving.

Bob sighed before looking to Emily. "Erin's fine," he assured her. "But, I don't quite think the uh secrecy here was needed with the letter," he mentioned.

Emily nodded as she eyed the envelope in his hand, wishing he would just hand it over to her. "Good," she replied, relieved that at least Erin was still alive. That was one less thing to worry about for her. "And I know, I'm sorry," she quickly apologized, her eyes still on the envelope.

Bob followed her gaze and decided to go ahead and hand it over to her. "Just remember, she's not mentally stable," he informed her, hoping that there wasn't too much in the letter that would bother her. Now, he was thinking that maybe he should have peeked at it ahead of time.

Emily cautiously accepted the envelope and carefully inspected it. She slowly turned and made her way over to sit down in the chair. Bob kept watch of her as she pulled the letter and began to read it.

She started out unaffected by the words. The first paragraph wasn't bad. It was once that she started getting towards the end that Emily started to tense up from the accusations. The memory of the day that Jeremy left.

_Emily sat at her desk next to Mary. They were waiting for Julia, who sat right in front of them, to come. _

_"She's running late this morning, usually she's pretty early," Emily noted. _

_Mary shrugged and went ahead and got her homework out to turn in today. "Maybe she's sick," she mentioned. _

_Erin walked into the classroom, her eyes glossed over as she kept her head down towards the floor. She looked worn and tired, like she hadn't slept at all. _

_"Are you feeling okay?" Emily implored as Erin went and took her seat. _

_"Yeah," she replied, no expression. _

_"Maybe something's going around," Mary suggested. Emily nodded in response. _

_The teacher walked in and the entire room went quiet. "Anyone know where Julia is?" she questioned, noticing the empty seat. _

_No one answered. Erin started looking more and more jumpy while Jeremy squirmed in his seat. Emily looked over and watched Erin with concern. _

_"Can anyone take Julia's homework to her after school today?" the teacher requested. _

_Jeremy slowly stood up from his seat. For the first time ever, Emily could see that he was scared. She could see some form of guilt in his eyes. He looked straight to the teacher, wide eyed as his lips quivered. "I'm sorry!" he announced and then quickly ran out of the room. _

Emily folded the letter. Her hands slightly trembling. As she tried to shove the letter back into the envelope she noticed there was something else in there. Hesitantly, she set the letter down next to her and pulled the other item out of the envelope. It was an old newspaper clipping.

"Oh my God," she softly gasped, her eyes beginning to for tears. She dropped everything and ran out of the room.

"Emily!" Bob called out, quickly jumping up from his seat. He went to go after her, but stopped to examine what she had dropped. First he grabbed the letter and skimmed over it. Then, there was the newspaper article, he picked up and read. It was an obituary for Julia Cotton, who died when she was eleven years old.

He went out the door and saw Carol walking back to her desk. As he was about to ask her if she had seen where Emily went, she held up her hand.

"She's currently throwing up in the bathroom," she answered. She watched as Bob sighed and slowly made his way towards the bathroom.

"There by any chance something wrong?" Carol asked.

"No, everything's just peachy," Bob curtly replied, keeping his head down as he waited for his wife to come back out to the lobby.

"Ah, I see," Carol said and sat back down at her seat. This definitely was no the time to be asking him questions.

Bob looked up to Carol, feeling bad for snapping at her. "She's uh, she's just having a bit of a rough time right now," he explained. "I guess I uh, shouldn't, shouldn't take that out on you."

Before Carol could respond, Emily walked back out to the lobby. "I think I'm just going to go home now," she wearily stated as she turned to go for the elevator.

"Wait," Bob called to her.

Emily stopped and looked to him, hoping that maybe he had something to say that would fix this. Maybe something to make a little sense of why this was all happening right now. "What is it?"

"I know this might be stupid on my part, but do you, do you want to go see Erin?" he offered.

Emily looked to him with surprise. "You mean to tell me that this entire time you tell me how bad of an idea that is, and then now you want to take me to go see her?" she asked. All she wanted to do was go home and try to forget about all of this. She was happy blocking everything out, maybe she could try and re-forget and just move on from it all.

"Emily, that was before all of this. I, I really think that now, maybe if you see how she is, you might not take what she says so seriously," Bob explained. He really did believe that. She had to see now that this woman could not be trusted. He could just see it in the pattern of her writing that she wasn't stable. Why couldn't Emily just see and understand what he was seeign?

"All right," she breathed out, hoping that he was right. She grabbed onto his hand as they walked together to the elevator.

ooo

Emily knocked on the door. There was no answer. That didn't stop her though, she still had to go in there, find out what was really going on here.

Bob stood back by the door as Emily approached the bed. Erin just watched as she came closer. Her eyes stuck on her, as if she were trying to figure out who she was.

"I'm Emily Harrison," Emily nervously stated, standing at the end of the bed. She briefly looked back to Bob for a moment, looking as if she were awaiting his approval.

Bob, who had agreed to step back and let the two talk until Emily wanted him to join her, just nodded. He knew that she was uncomfortable and that was understandable. He just wanted to give her the chance to see how this woman really talked. He knew that the second Erin saw him, she would recognize him and she might not act the same way.

A crooked smile came across Erin's face. She was grateful that this lady came in to see her, another chance to dig into her, another chance to drive her over the edge. "Well if it isn't little miss Emily? Our little goody two shoes, little miss daddy's girl. I remember you very well," she explained.

"I see," Emily responded, not knowing how to take that introduction.

Erin's smile grew even bigger, a little sinister. "The letter right?"

Emily nodded. "I want to know what it was that I did," she firmly stated, trying to hold herself together. Now, was not the time for any sort of vulnerability, she knew that this woman here wanted to tear her down for some reason, and she wasn't about to do anything to help her.

Erin sighed. "My dear friend, you really don't remember?" she questioned.

Emily shook her head. "I know little bits here and there, but I can't remember everything," she explained. "I know that you were with Jeremy for a while and that he was creepy…" she trailed off upon seeing the smile fade from Erin's face.

"Jeremy wasn't creepy," Erin harshly corrected her.

Emily was taken aback by the comment. Was she really still attached to this boy?

"Jeremy was goddamn demented. He had the mind set on track of being a murderer," Erin explained.

_Jeremy sat at his desk, harshly scribbling on the paper with his red crayon. _

_"It's not that bad Jeremy! You have me remember?" Erin cried as she watched him draw the bodies covered in blood. Various body parts such as limbs and heads detached from the bodies were laying in puddles of blood._

_It wasn't the drawings themselves that bothered her, it was the fact that she knew he would act on them someday. He had his breaking point like everyone else, and when he hit his, a lot of people were going to have to pay. _

_Jeremy threw his fist down on the desk as he turned and looked to Erin with tears of frustration in his eyes. _

"He always wanted revenge. Especially after the day you mentioned that Greg liked Julia," Erin informed her.

Emily's eyes widened. "You're seriously telling me that because I mentioned one time that Greg liked someone Jeremy went out and killed her?" she implored, her voice steadily raising.

Erin sat up and leaned towards her. "You know damn well that he would have never even thought about bringing Julia over if you would have just kept your mouth shut. Instead you had to be little miss romance and go on and on about how someday they were going to get married. You put the idea in his head that he had to use her to get to him and you didn't even lift a finger to try and stop him," she venomously explained. She then sat back and calmed herself. "You had to have known that Jeremy would have done anything to get back at Greg. He hated him with every ounce of energy he had."

Emily stared to her, not knowing what to say. Her eyes then shifted over to Bob.

Bob could see that she was getting more uncomfortable and decided to go over and join her. As he stood beside his wife, he could see Erin watching him, remembering. "So, you wanted to hear the rest of the story too?" she asked. Bob just nodded.

Erin slightly laughed. "You know, Jeremy didn't actually kill her, not intentionally," she began.

_Erin lead Julia to the shed out in the back behind Jeremy's house. "Don't worry. This isn't like last week with the show," Erin promised her. _

_Julia nervous looked around the place, trying to get herself comfortable with her surroundings. Her instincts told her just to turn around and run. Some how though, she remained there with Erin. "Are you sure?" she asked. _

_"Yes. You'll be fine," Erin reassured her as she opened the door to the shed. _

_Julia was surprised by the sight before her. Jeremy was standing there, holding a daisy and had a smile on his face. _

_"Is that for me?" Julia asked. _

_Jeremy nodded and handed her the daisy. _

_"Thank you," she said and then kissed him on the cheek. _

_Erin stood back by the door as she watched the scene before her. _

_"Was there something else that you wanted?" Julia questioned. _

_Jeremy nodded. He took a moment to gather his courage, and then put his hands on her cheeks and attempted to pull her in for a kiss. Julia, however, was a little surprised by this and forcefully pulled back from him. As she pulled back, she tripped and fell onto the bear trap. She shrieked as the metal clamp gripped her shoulder and part of her neck. _

_Jeremy panicked. He had no idea what to do now. His mind went blank. All he could do was stand there and watch her as she cried, struggling to get free. The dark blood quickly oozing and forming a puddle beneath her. Her cries growing more and more faint. Then again, there was only one real scream and then breathy crying. _

_Erin's eyes widened as she watched. Blood splattered on her clothes, but she hadn't noticed yet. She was too horrified with the scene before her. She couldn't bare it though. As quickly as she could, she left the shed and ran home, trying to beat her parents home so that she wouldn't have to answer any questions. _

"We just left the body, hoping that no one would check there, that maybe no one would question anything. It was stupid, but we were kids. Scared and stupid kids," Erin told them.

"I, I still fail to see how this is Emily's fault," Bob stated, hoping that Emily was paying attention to him rather than focusing on what she could have done differently.

"Weren't you listening?" Erin inquired. "Jeremy hated Greg. He wanted to get back at him. So naturally, sherlock over here missed out on that fact and decided to go ahead and talk about how much Greg liked Julia in front of the little freak. It was after he heard her that he wanted to arrange to have Julia meet him and then he wanted to kiss her, just to upset Greg. She would have never even been there if Emily would have kept her mouth shut."

"You could have not brought Julia there," Bob argued.

"Please, once that kid got an idea he stuck to it. He would have gotten her there without me," Erin said.

Emily finally narrowed her eyes on Erin. "Why are you so insistent on blaming me?" she sternly questioned. Honestly, she did believe that she had some fault, she was just hoping that maybe Erin would throw something out there that could perhaps allow her to discard everything she had said.

Erin sat up and smirked. "Because, I'm stuck here in an insane asylum while Julia died a bloody death and Jeremy hung himself in the attic. This didn't all just happen! It happened because you had to be stupid enough and air headed enough to open your mouth in front of him! Julia would be alive right now and so would Jeremy if you had any sense! You knew damn well that he was dangerous! You knew damn well that he had no limits!" she yelled. "I need someone to blame! I need to know that this wasn't all just something that happened and you happened to be the bitch that actually really had something to do with this!"

Emily coldly stared to her. She had so much that she wanted to say to her, but wasn't quite sure what it was that she wanted to tell her. She couldn't put her feelings into words and it was starting to bother her. So, instead of saying anything at all, she curtly turned and left the room.

Bob followed her close behind. Honestly, he was proud of the way she had handled herself in there. She didn't break down and she even stood up for herself a little, she asked why it had to be her that was guilty.

Emily kept her quick and steady pace through most of the hall, holding her head up high. It was towards the end though, that she slowed down and her head lowered.

Bob stopped as soon as he saw her shoulders shaking from the sobbing that she had started. "She's playing games with your head. She wants you to feel guilty instead herself having to deal with it," he informed her.

Emily turned back to him, looking desperate and helpless. "She didn't lie though," she argued.

"Emily…"

"I don't want to talk about this here. Can we please just go home?" she requested.

"Sure," he replied. He put his arm around her and guided her to elevator.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: And Nothing Changes

Bob and Emily silently walked back into the apartment together.

"Emily," Bob called to her as she walked straight towards the kitchen.

"Tell me it's not my fault one more time Bob," she wearily warned him, her voice raspy from crying. She stood at the counter, leaning on it with one hand, while the other brushed through her hair. "You can tell me all you want, but it won't change what happened."

Bob closed the door behind him and walked over to join her. "Okay," he sighed. Obviously he was going to have to use a different approach."Tell me how Erin described you when we walked into that room."

"A good two shoes and a daddy's girl," she answered, sniffling.

"Do you, do you know why she would uh describe you this way?" he implored, trying to get her to realize that Erin still saw her as innocent. She may not have came out and said it, but he could tell that she just needed to blame someone else, that she was about to do anything to come up with a way to twist the story around and pin it on someone.

"Because I did threaten to tell on Jeremy. I told everyone that I was going to tell my daddy," she explained.

"Did you?"

"No. I thought maybe Jeremy would hunt me down or something. Even though I didn't tease the kid or

hang around him too much, I still had some fear of the kid," she replied. It was weird for her to think back on all of that. Everyone wanted to tell on Jeremy, but no one did. Everyone wanted to be able to not worry about him, but they all did at some point.

"Did uh, did Jeremy ask you to help out with what he was planning with Julia?" he questioned, thinking that this might get them somewhere. Maybe if she wasn't involved in the planning of this, he could point out to her that it wasn't her idea.

"Erin did," she replied, looking to him, interested in what he might have to say. "But I told her no."

Good. Now maybe he could get somewhere with her. "And uh did, did you tell her why you wouldn't?" he implored.

"I just remember telling her that there was no way that I would ever bring people over to Jeremy's house. I don't remember though what exactly it was she asked me. I don't even think she told me what he was planning on doing," Emily explained. She herself was about to just give up and go to bed for the rest of the day.

"Well, don't you get it?" Bob asked, starting to get a little excited.

Emily sighed as her head lowered. "I don't know Bob," she replied, frustrated. "Why don't you just tell me?"

"You refused to help Erin and Jeremy. That means that you were against getting Julia. That also means that you didn't help in her accidental murder," he informed her, hoping that this time she might see it the way he did.

Emily shook her head and then silently walked over to the bedroom and closed the door behind her. It wasn't that she was mad at Bob, she just couldn't take this anymore. He was out there trying to convince her that the truth wasn't there.

Besides, that wasn't what bothered her the most anymore. She was able to realize that this whole thing wasn't all her fault. She knew that she wasn't the one that had dragged Julia there and she wasn't the one to push her back on the trap that killed her.

What was bothering her now was how much power her words could have. Up until now, she never thought too much of little comments and remarks that she would make out in public. Now, after this, she felt like she had to censor every tiny little thought. She could never say anything at all without wondering what kinds of ideas she might be putting into play.

Another thing was that now she wondered about how many bad things she indirectly caused over the years. For all she knew, she could have made one innocent comment in the store in front of a complete stranger and may have just triggered something that caused that person to go home and either kill someone or injure someone.

This irrational paranoia swept over her like some sort of tidal wave. It was suffocating her and holding her under until she couldn't stand it anymore.

Emily let out a heavy sigh as she sat down on the edge of the bed. She had to clear her mind somehow. With all of her thoughts scattered and borderline incoherent, she wanted to be able to just stop thinking for a moment. Perhaps, just let herself go numb and thoughtlessly stare into space.

Bob went to the door and knocked. "Emily?" he called.

She really didn't want to talk to anyone at all right now, but at the same time, she needed him. "You can come in," she responded.

Bob entered into the room and sat down beside her. He said nothing. He simply sat down next to her and reached over and grabbed her hand. It was obvious that no matter what he said, she would argue it. All she needed right now was to know that he was there.

Emily looked over and forced a small smile of gratitude.

Oooo

Erin sat there, in her room with Dr. Cromley right there with her. She blankly stared ahead as he sat there, in a chair beside her bed.

"I don't know," she flatly said. "I don't really feel anything."

Dr. Cromley looked to her with interest. "Don't you feel bad at all? Toying with a woman's emotions like that?" he implored.

Erin smugly smiled as she shook her head. "It's about time someone felt the guilt that I felt that day. It's not fair that the goody two shoes got what she wanted out of life while two kids died that year. They had plans to you know. So did I. Why should she get the perfect life? Besides, she was the one that started this whole thing. She was the one that wrote me the letter. Without that, I wouldn't have known that I could play on her feelings. I kind of even wish that I would have known that he was her husband the first time I met him. I could have played with his head too," she explained.

"How much of what you told her was true?"

Erin's smile faded. "Most of it. I know though that I should have tried to stop Jeremy. If anything, I encouraged him. I was afraid to be anything but supportive of his idea."

"Didn't you think to tell anyone about him? Maybe get help?" Cromley asked.

Erin shook her head. "I was too scared to do that too. Everyone was. Even his parents weren't completely aware of what he was doing," she explained. "I was stuck because I was afraid."

Oooo

Bob awoke in the middle of the night. The first thing he noticed was that he was alone in the bedroom. "Emily?" he asked, turing on the light. She wasn't there. He threw the covers off and grabbed his robe.

"Emily?" he asked again as he stepped out of the bedroom. He saw her sitting at the table looking over her notebook.

Emily looked up to him. "Hi Bob," she said.

"What are you doing up?" he implored.

Emily shrugged as she closed the notebook. "You ever wonder why certain things happen?" she inquired.

Bob sighed. "Emily," he said as he sat down next to her. "Jeremy was obviously messed up. Erin had issues too. Anyone with any sort of common sense would be able to tell that," he stated.

"And I was the one too dumb to notice that and watch what I said," Emily added.

"I, I don't know how many times I'm going to uh, to have to tell you this, but uh, Emily, you were a little kid," he explained. "Kids don't uh don't usually look for the mentally unstable and know what they can and can't say in, in front of them. Anyone could have said the wrong thing at the wrong time. What happened to you was purely by chance," he informed her.

Emily sat there and thought about what he said. It did make sense. A lot of things were starting to make more sense as she calmed down and thought about it. Still, she was going to feel guilty for a while, there was no getting around that. "I guess you're right," she reluctantly agreed.

"I know I am," Bob responded.

"I just can't over knowing how it happened though," Emily said. "One thing I said, just one thing changed three people's lives," she stated. "Two died and one is mentally insane."

"How, how do you know they wouldn't have ended up that way if, if you hadn't said anything?" Bob implored. "I mean, Jeremy was messed up, you knew he would crack sooner or later. Erin probably would've, would've went with him. Eventually when they lost it, someone most likely would have gotten killed," he reasoned.

"But that's not how it happened Bob. You never know, they might have all lived and actually been happy. Julia could've been something today. Erin could be happy. Jeremy may have gotten better," she suggested.

"Okay, let's try this," Bob began. "We, we all have the ability to think. We can all decide what we do and don't do. Just, just because you said something doesn't mean that Erin and Jeremy had to get Julia over there. Jeremy decided that on his own. You had nothing to do with that. Erin decided, on, on her own to go along with his idea. You, you see where I'm heading with this?"

"Yeah, I should be more careful with my words because of how persuasive I can be," Emily replied.

"No! I'm, I'm saying that it doesn't matter what you said. They were the ones that decided to bring Julia to the shed. They did all of this without your help," he responded.

Emily looked to him. It made sense. "So now what?" she inquired.

Bob thought a second. "So now uh, now we go to bed, we say good night to each other, and uh we, we go to sleep and then go about our day tomorrow as, as we always have," he informed her.

Emily looked to him with suspicion. "We're going to ignore what happened?"

"No, I'm saying that I'm still going to love you and, and you're still going to be the only woman I want to be married to and nothing is going to change between us," he explained, assuring her that he was going to be there.

Emily leaned over and kissed him. "Thank you," she said.

"But, you could lay off the match making," he stated.

Emily slightly glared to him.

"Not that uh, that there's a problem with it," he added to make her feel better. He then stood up and reached out for her hand.

"I'll accept that," she replied with a smile, taking his hand and Bob lead her to bed.


End file.
